Andreas Deja (Legendary Disney Animator)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're a fan of everything we do here at
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(00:21):
slash Jim Cummings Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Do it now?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
How you doing out there? It's me Tigger, I.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Am Doc Wayne Duck.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
It's me Bunkers keep Bobcat All right, y'all?

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Is it rate your favorite firefly you desire?

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hondo old knock Gud.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
My name is Jim Cummings and welcome to Tuned In.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Tuned In with
Jim Cummings. I am producer Chris, joined as always by
the legend mister Jim Cummings himself.

Speaker 5 (00:52):
How are you doing today? Serious?

Speaker 3 (00:53):
It's another day at Paradise. I'll say it again, it
sure is.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Couldn't It could not be more accurate and true than
it is today.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
Absolutely absolutely, And today we have a very special guest
for you. He is a literal Disney legend. Yes you
heard that right, a literal Disney legend. You may not
know his face, but you definitely know his animations. He
was responsible for Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, ja'far
obviously from a Latin scar the Lion King, and many
many more. We are very pleased to have you today,

(01:21):
Andreas Desa.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Thank you so much for having me. This is an honor, honestly,
big honor.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Well, it's ere to be here, so happy to have you,
so happy to have you here. We were boning up,
so to speak, and listening with you, speaking with Leonard
Malton and all your insights. I mean, it's you are
the new standard bearer. You are the new You're it now.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
I don't know about that, but I do. And this
might be what you're referring to, Jim, is I need
that connection to the past. I really, I really need it.
So when I came out over here, I grew up
in Germany, went to art school there. My family is
still there, and anyway made it to Disney via writing

(02:08):
letters when I was a teenager and all that, and
then then got into what they're called the Disney Animation
Training Program, which one of the great animators, Eric Larson,
one of the nine old men started and he was
the mentor and I had written to him, sent it
some artwork, made it got into the program, which lasted
about six weeks to a point where they could see

(02:30):
if you're talented, and if you're if they could offer
you a permanent job, which they did, and then that
lasted thirty years. But while I was not just meeting
Eric Lars and Frank Thomas and Olive Johnston were writing
their first book upstairs, The Illusion of Life at a
Big Disney Bible, so I had access to them. Yes
it still is. And then and then all the others

(02:52):
I wanted to meet. I wanted to meet the people
who drew my childhood dreams, you know, because when you
read the credits on these, it seems like the animators
were always the same name, so it's the same group.
So that was just the timing of that they were
most of them were still around, and I would go
up to la approximately nineteen eighty Okay, he started August

(03:14):
of nineteen eighty, and then you had to be able
to go up to Lucaniata and visit Frank Thomas and A.
Johnson spent hours with him and asking them on BAMBI
how did you do that? How much? How much study
was involved to do Bambi? And how did you It
was just it was just great timing for me because
not only did I have a job at Disney, I

(03:35):
could meet these guys.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Oh my gosh, Yeah, you know, I remember it's funny
you say Bambi. I think that might have been maybe
the first movie I saw a period, and I remember,
being strict, it just hit me that that looked like
a baby deer because he couldn't stay his little spindly
legs were he was trying to get up and the
PLoP down and his legs were going display and and

(03:58):
and Thumper was there, and he had that cute little face,
and I'm going, that's it looks just like a rabbit,
but it's a cartoon rabbit, but it's got a face
on it. And he's smiling and he's starking, and you know,
and but I bought everything. I bought everything about it.
It just encapsulated the imagination so completely that you know,
two minutes into the movie, it wasn't there, It wasn't animation.

(04:22):
It looked like the forest. It looked I thought that
the you know, deers could talk. Yeah, you know it was.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
It was. It was magic and it still is.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
It's interesting talking a little bit about Bambi. When I
wrote my first letter to Disney, I think I was twelve.
The first movie I saw a movie was Jungle Book,
which is still my favorite, maybe for that reason too,
because it was my first one and I'm absolutely mad
about that film. So I was about ten. And then
at the age of twelve, I didn't speak any English

(04:54):
dand but in English teachers at school and to help
you said, I want to write to Disney and ask
them letters. A letter when I ask them some questions,
how I can prepare myself this kid in Germany to
sometime later work for them. And they roll back and
they said, actually, super important stuff. They said, if you're
interested in the kind of animation that we do here

(05:14):
at the studio, we of course we want to see
how you draw and want to see your art, but
please don't send us any copies of Mickey Mouse and Pluto,
because we can teach you that. You know, that's all
I've learned. You've got to be an artists first, on
your own right. And they said, if you're at that age,
now start drawing your brothers and sisters chart, draw your pets,

(05:35):
go to the zoo, draw the animals a lot.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
And now I've heard you tell this story and it
started to cut you off. But I was curious while
I was listening to this before when they say draw that.
Are you drawing it in a cartoon version, are you
drawing as realistic as possible?

Speaker 5 (05:49):
Or all of the above.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
They said, draw the real thing. You have to draw
a realistic natural way, so it shows us that you
understand the skeleton of a deer or an elephant, you know,
to study that and see how they move. I said,
the cartoon stuff. That's why they said, Mickey out and
PLU don't know, because that we can teach you, and
as a kid, you don't really understand that. At first,

(06:12):
I said, well, but it's a cartoon studio, the biggest
in the world. You know. Of course you got to
draw cartoon characters. But then then I did see Bambi
in a re release, and I saw those very scenes
him wobbling, and almost like a light bulb went on,
I said, well, whoever animated that, that person had to
know where the ripcage is and how it connects with

(06:33):
the head and the legs. And the heat. So of
course it's all about anat academy. You have to know that,
you have to know the real thing. So then it
really made sense and I said, okay, that's exactly what
I'm going to do. All the local zoos and visited
them and learned how to draw animals. And later on,
when I was older, actually I was fourteen or fifteen

(06:54):
when I started life drawing in front of nude models.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
I was going to ask you, was that how that?

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah, you have to, but yeah, for my parents, that's
a little young only you know, so I remember, and
my parents really are not artists, and bless them, they
have a totally different background. But when I came home
the first time and I had these big drawings of
nude people, that so, so you had some photographs that

(07:19):
you drew this from, And I said, no, there were
actually people who took their clothes off and we we
had to learn how the body functions. And and then
I told my parents talk to my art teacher at
high school, because he knows about what artists have to
do young artists, and so they talked to him and
he said, yeah, Andreas has some challenge. He can do this.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Oh, it's okay, and it's okay, it's okay.

Speaker 5 (07:42):
Oh my god, that's funny. True wow.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah. But then it all made sense. And then later
on you read these things that Walt Disney said famously,
we have to study the real thing before we can
animate it and courage and all that makes complete sense.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
I remember when the making of The Lion King, for instance,
the Disney sent a bunch of people to Africa to
draw warthogs and meerkats and and I remember going to
Africa after having been in a movie, and the war
dogs really run like that with their tail. I mean,

(08:21):
they're going that's exactly. Oh my god, there's bumba.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
You know.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
It was unbelievable how well they did it. And the
slinky ah like with scar right, with those slinky shoulders,
the way they moved through the glass, the grass, it was.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
It was amazing.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
And again, studying the real thing, it's just so important.
I wasn't on that trip. I was. We were no
animator wind because we were finishing Aladdin at the time.
And I remember one day in the lobby, this was
on the airway where we drew Lion King. They were
all these other artists with suitcases, and I said, where
are you going? And they say Africa, and I said, well,

(09:01):
can't you wait. We still have to do a few
more scenes for I have to do a future far
scenes left to do and they said, no, we have
to go now because the raining season is going to start,
and I said, oh great. You know, so we didn't
go on usually we do go on this trip. I
went to France for Beauty and the Beast. Then I
went to Hawaii fully loaned stitch, but Africa didn't work out.
But I did the same thing afterwards. I went on

(09:23):
my own on safari and did all that. But the
way we learned about lions, well, first you go to
the La Zoo, but then you know, if it's summer,
you go there and the line is asleep for half
a day, and that's the only post we're going to get.
We did go to San Diego a little bit better
down there, and then somebody at the studio set, now

(09:44):
we got to bring these animals in. So in a
conference room on airway Englen and boy, they actually had
a they got in touch with with a group of
people who train animals for movies, all kinds of animals,
bears and lines and tigers, and so they brought those
in these people. These animals were supposedly used to people,

(10:08):
and we were there on our benches, you know, with
our with our big drawing pads. And then I remember
the first animal that brought around the corner just with
a little chain. There was no fence or anything.

Speaker 5 (10:19):
Today.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
You couldn't do that with no insurance. You couldn't, you know.
There was no separation, no, no nothing. Oh wow, So
the line cup was half a year. Oh it was cute,
you know, you draw that.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
And then the second second one was a mom came
around the corner and it wasn't so cute.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
It wasn't so cute. An we all gassed. And then
then the last one was I remember a fully grown
male called Joseph, and he had been in some Michael
Jackson video and you were told you he'd been fed,
so don't don't worry. But again, there was no security
or safety barrier at all.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
Were scared at all.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
I was scared and excited. It was, oh, I'm never
going to get close like this to a line, and
it was yeah, that's that's when you're really when you're
so close to them and not their way down there,
you know, far away under trees. This is this is
where you get it. And you see how they walk
and really how big they are. And yeah, it was

(11:15):
a really really important day for us.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
I touched a lion once, Yeah, but she did. Was
it was okay with her. It was it was a girl.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
And I was in Africa and an open air jeep,
open air, and I was saying to the guy and
they were trying to catch these gazelle and you could
see I've told this before, there's like six or eight. Uh,
the ladies do all the hunting, the women, you know,
so and uh, they're all sitting there and you can

(11:45):
see the wind is blowing this way, and the gazelle's
are right over there and they're sneaking up like this.
The wind stops. Now it's going that way. So now
the gazelle's can smell the lions and they're sitting there, eating, eating,
and they were gone, they disappeared, and the lions all

(12:06):
stood up and it's just like they're like big cats.
They oh, great, you're never gonna kid eat now, and
let's keep come on, come on, we gotta find something else,
you know.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
And it was the craziest it was a circle of life.

Speaker 5 (12:21):
You know.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
The interesting thing about when you go to a park
like Krueger National Park, while the others that the animals
are so used to the jeeps, they don't even pay attention.
I think, like you're moving rock or something. They don't
look even if it's an open jeep. And yes, they
don't attack. You know, they grew up with these wheel
type things coming around. They don't even look at you.

(12:43):
They do hunting and mating and eating and as if
you're not there, which is which is kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, and I know, and I asked him. I don't
know if I said.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
This, but I said, okay, stupid question.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
I don't want to jinx anything, but why aren't they
eating us? They could catch me, they have no problem.
I mean, there's a gazelle. You have to run like
hell to catch me.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Not so much.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Just I'm right here, and they go, well suh. If
you exit the jeep, you into the food chain. And
I'm sitting right here. I ain't gone nowhere. And apparently
that had happened.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
I was told there was There was some tourists and
one woman was a little over excited to get to
some cubs. But the parents, but she walked out and
she was attacked, and it does happen. But I mean
you just know better, right you stay inside?

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, no kidding, Yeah, I had no problem sitting inside there.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
So for the people watching, could you describe, like what
your job actually consists of, like for the title of say,
supervising animator, Like, what does that look like when you're
working on say, you know, the Lion King or Aladdin
or whatever Disney movie? What does that daily process look like?
Because I don't think a lot of the public really knows.
I mean I know, I don't know what that really

(14:03):
process really looks like, like what are your specific roles?

Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well, by the time I come onto the picture, so again,
we had finished Aladdin, I did ja'far and.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
So like, let me pause you there when you say
I did Jaffar, Like, what does that supervising animator?

Speaker 2 (14:20):
I didn't do every scene, but I do probably the
most important ones. So you do like the personality acting ones.
And then when when Jaffar is is a beggar digging
for the lamp in the sand and he's eccentric, somebody
else can do that, you know, But when he is
suddenly interacting with Jasmine and saying, well, Aladdin is going

(14:40):
to be beheaded and death is whatever. Interesting, I have
to do those close ups acting.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
Scenes, so they trust you to really get the personality
out of the character.

Speaker 5 (14:49):
Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (14:50):
The voice the voice, of course, of course, I mean
in terms of animation.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, But then maybe most people don't even know that
that the voice is always recorded. People probably about yeah,
that's right, and that that gives us everything. And funnily,
you know, before you'far I had done Gaston, another villain,
and so by the time it came to Lion King,
I thought, well, it's not my turn, because all the

(15:16):
animals want to do villains, and those are really juicing hearts.
You can do more, that's true.

Speaker 5 (15:22):
The same thing about voicing, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Because you can roll up your sleeves and go to town.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
And I thought, well, I've done to look at the story.
So so coming onto Lionking, I look at early storyboards
and see how they drew Scar or how they do
the characters, because I wasn't even thinking about Scar then.
And then there's some visual development art. These are people
who do early design ideas give you a whole range
of ideas for characters, and settings, so I can already

(15:48):
look at something. I don't have to look at a
blank sheet of paper, and I can listen to voice tracks.
So but so again I was thinking I should probably
maybe do Rafiki or or maybe adult Simba, because you know,
of the villain situation. And then somebody said, you know,
and Andrea Jeremy Irons was just here and he tested
for a scar, and I said, I have to listen

(16:10):
to this. So I got the tapes and this is
this is the kind of thing where you close your
eyes and you can just see pictures come in. It
just happens. It seemed easy, you know, with the with
a sense of humor, these evil and smartly sly it
was to me it would almost be easy to animate

(16:30):
that because it was so clear. So I went into
the director's room and said, I know it's not my turn.
I've done two villain, but I just listened to those
tapes and I think I can do something with this.
And they just looked at me and they said, well,
we kind of had your mind anyway. And then that
was and I was just so happy. So it was

(16:51):
a privilege to do that character, even though it wasn't
my turn. It was Yeah, in terms of voices, was
probably the richest voice i've I've had it. It's the
straightforward voices where there's not much range, where you maybe
struggle a little bit as an animator, but when you
have a voice like, lines are not all that. No,
we lines are not all that. I mean, you just

(17:14):
hear it, you know you know how to raise the
character up or now you know the expression. It was
absolute joy and the privilege.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, I would imagine.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Well, I think villains in general, I've always said around
a little more fun.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
The only one I had trouble with, at least getting
started with guest On because that was the first one.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
And why is that?

Speaker 2 (17:38):
Well, again, I looked at the storyboards and the visual
development art as I always do when I start, and
I and I did a scene that ended up in
the movie. It was a test scene, but it made
it in the film. Where he's singing at the beginning
and it's still doing the bell song at the beginning
of the movie, and he's noticing his reflection at some

(17:59):
parts and pants that aren't hanging there at one shop,
you know, and he kind of adores himself. And so
that was my first scene and I remember Jeffre Katzenburg
who was on the Boss. Then he said, well, he said,
he said, the animation is fine, but he's not handsome enough.
And I said, handsome he's the villain, right, and caricature

(18:21):
and the design, and and I didn't really understand why.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah, it goes against the grain. Wait, a good looking villain.
He's supposed to have a hook nose.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, And so I was messing with. I did some
some design looking like a prince. Basically, I said, is
that what they want? You know, like a soap opera star?
So I didn't really know. And then Katzenberg did call me.
I remember the one time he caught me into his
office and explained, you know, the movie is really about
don't judge the book by its cover. So we have

(18:51):
the beast who is scary and frightening when we see him,
and we find out he has a hot of gold
through the story, and Gaston has the opposite qualities, is
a handsome dude, and maybe the audience should think, oh
he's handsome, he should maybe marry well, But then you
find that he's only it's all all about himself, and
he's a male chauvenist. Then it becomes a murderer in
the end. So these are the opposite qualities to the beast,

(19:14):
and that's why he has to be handsome. And I
remember telling saying to Jeffrey, but handsome is so much
more difficult to animate. And Jeffrey just said, nobody said
it was going to be easy. Yeah, that was the
end of that meeting. But I did I didn't understand
the concept he had to be handsome being evil. There
are handsome people being bad that they do exist. Oh sure, yeah,

(19:36):
so he was one of them. But then you walk
that fine line how much caricature and expressiveness cannot put
in because if I don't put any of that in,
he's going to look like a puppet, you know, always
nice drawing, but not really emmoting. So that was he
probably was the most difficult character because of that.

Speaker 5 (19:57):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 5 (19:59):
I know.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
In like recent times, I've heard stories of like animators
and they'll you know, capture on video the actor, the
voice actors performance so that they can Did they do
that back when you were animated?

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yes, yeah, we have a I don't know if they
recorded you when you did your bit for Scar I
don't remember.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Oh gosh, that might have they did here and there.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
You know sometimes, but it with me.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
When I was doing ed for the Lion King, it
was just all I did was stand there and laugh
like an idiot for an hour. If you're a fan
of everything we do here at tuned In with Jim Cummings,
you could support the show on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts,
as well as early in ad free access to the
show itself, prize drawings, and more. You'll feel the difference,

(20:48):
so go ahead and join the tuned In family today
at patreon dot com slash Jim Cummings podcast Do It Now.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
But famously, you also did some of Scar because Jeremy
Uh doing the song, you couldn't do certain singing passages.
And then Jim jumped in and we talked about this earlier.

Speaker 5 (21:08):
That you did it.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
You gave me a very very good piece of singing
at the end of the song be prepared. He doesn't
end up singing me prepared. You did be prepared, And
I want to do something with that. Yes, you did,
because that's it sounds different and I have half scargo
up on that rock. Be prepared and I animated, you know,

(21:31):
and that's what made the scene That gave me chills,
because that image comes right. I would have never done
that if Jim hadn't. Heaven't hadn't.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
I wanted to bite off the end of it exactly.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Was the end of the song exactly then?

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Because you always laugh, yeah, at the end of the
sub bad guys laugh.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Because they yeah, no, they think they have the upper hand.
But it was one of those unique things where Jim
thought about something special and I realized that it and yes,
you did want to make something special out of that
and just grab onto those little extra things.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
Whenever I hear you talk, what really fascinates me about
you is your attention to detail. And I think that's
what makes you such a Disney legend, is your attention
to detail. Do you do you focus on that? I mean,
of course you have to write detail.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
You mean in drawing, or in the performance.

Speaker 5 (22:21):
Or everything, even in the way you talk.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Well, I just and I still do that. Working for Disney.
You compare yourself with the old guys, and they had,
my god, their level. Look at Lady in the Tramp,
I mean, look at Peter Pan. And there were times
where not just me, but my colleagues were thinking, like,
who are we kidding, and we don't do that level,

(22:45):
you know. And I remember when Mermaid came out and
was a big hit, and there was this teenager. He
was the son of a contractor who did some work
for me. He came up to me and said, hey,
I heard you worked on the Little Mermaid and I
said yeah. And a minute of father try and and
he said, I saw the little Moment with my girlfriend
and we snuggled up and it was a great date,

(23:06):
you know, and we're like, oh my god, we got
the teenagers back up. Until then, that was no Disney
animated films. You just don't go with your girlfriend to
a Disney film, you know, that's not adult stuff. And
all of a sudden they really liked the film and
watch it as a young couple, and so yeah, that
signaled to me, well, we had their teenagers back. But

(23:30):
in terms of were we as good as the old guys?
And I asked that question, and sometimes when when people
did compliment our films, I said, yeah, but have you
seen Lady in the Tramp lately, because that's the good stuff.
And then you know, somebody said, yeah, we like that too.
But whether it's a little Moment or beauty and the Beast.

(23:51):
Those characters speak to us. They were kind of more modern,
you know, the girl girls were independent with Cinderella and
snow White were of another era. And then I started
to understand why, you know, why these these characters that
might not have been done as well as the old guys,
but the concept spoke to them and the stories to them.

(24:15):
So then I had an easier time to accept compliments really, because,
let's face it, the old guys were just it's almost inhuman,
you know when you even now after having been in
the industry for so long, I just look at anything
that they did and it's just it is so good.
It's forever you do something that well and it doesn't

(24:37):
it doesn't age.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yeah, I agree, it's just so good. I agree. Well,
all those those movies.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
That's why they they re released them, you know, they
and to great success, you know, time and time again.
There's a timeless quality too, and I think that's what
Walt understood, and that's what he brought to to all
of his things, the rides, the all the way us,
the board, you know, the artwork is phenomenal, and the

(25:04):
acting and the music, the music. Anytime that the music
can grab you. Yeah, you know, that's you know, and
I think that I would imagine as an animator, that
gives you something to hang your head on.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, it gives you a rhythm, It gives you a rhythm.
I did some scenes, not all of them, doing the
Gaston song to be a drinking song, and there was
one scene where he had two waltz with Lafou through
the tavern there and I remember, I remember it is
a teenager. I had dance lessons and knew how a
waltz one to three, one to three, one to three,

(25:38):
so I could do that without live action reference. So
you kind of draw from your own experiences. But you
really shut the door to your office and you do
these steps and you're trying to figure out how that works,
you know, and so so yeah, you try to be
as authentic, you know, as it can be.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
That that that that's what animation is. You have to
be a little crazy to do that. Yeah, yeah, twenty
part of being able to put off the instant gratification.
It's not an instant, there's no instinct that comes later.
But yeah, but there is also nothing like it. And
I'm sure you feel the same way when when you

(26:20):
when the film is done and you see it with
an audience, not studio audience, but a regular orientine theater.
You're in the middle of the theater and nobody knows
who you are. And I just watched yeah, yeah, oh
that's my stuff is coming up. I wonder if they're
gonna and then you get a reaction, it's like, oh,
it's just it's just like, you know, it's just like

(26:41):
all that hard work.

Speaker 5 (26:43):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
There's no feeling like.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yeah, I agree, I agree. Nothing like seeing that the
end product.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
No, and especially when you put so much time into it,
so many I mean, did you always know? Because I
knew I was going to do what I do when
I was five. I've said up before, when did you
no for sure?

Speaker 2 (27:01):
The day I saw a Jungle Book, it was book,
was that it was ten and I saw that, and
there's no other way to describe it. My head was spinning.
And there was my life before Jungle Book and my
life after. Because I just there was this gravity toward it.
I felt like I need to And then that's why
I wrote to them. I didn't even have the address.
I just was Walt Disney Production's Los Angeles, USA.

Speaker 5 (27:24):
Really and it got.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
There wow way yeah, you know, and and they wrote
me back, and I still have that letter, but it
became real at that moment it there really exists because
they wrote to me, you know, but excuse me.

Speaker 4 (27:39):
Wow, wow, that's fascinating. And then so you're the first project,
if I'm not mistaken, that you worked on for Disney
was the Black Caul Drink.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
It was, Yeah. They were finishing Fox in the Hound,
and I remember them saying, we don't need you on
that now that you have a full time job after
the training period. We're almost done with Fox in the Hound.
But they said we're going to do this Black Caldron project,
which I knew about because there had been a Live
magazine article with early development art from the from the

(28:09):
Black Cold and by Meltshaw. As I knew about it,
and even while I was still in Germany getting getting
ready to come to the US, I bought the books
and read all those Lloyd Alexander books about the Black
Holdren and just out of curiosity, I did some sketches
of the of Terran alon Win how I might visualize

(28:29):
them inward style, And I remember I had a pack
of drawings. And when I got to Disney, I showed
them to management. I said, I just fooled around with
some designs and they said, oh, they said, we don't
have any designs it can we buy them from you?

Speaker 5 (28:44):
What?

Speaker 2 (28:45):
So it was like it was like two or three
thousand dollars, but it was enough for me to buy
some furniture for my rental.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yah.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
It was a really it was really nice.

Speaker 5 (28:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
And then they said later, a little bit later, they said,
we like to continue to do some character development because
we don't have anybody doing that. We're going to put
you with another person who also is your age and
who just graduated from cal Arts and he draws very
differently from you. You draw very Disney. This guy's name
is Tim. He draws, you know, sort of a freaky

(29:18):
not freaky, but has his own style and maybe we
can mix the two of you. And that was Tim Burton.
Oh that was my It was a full full year
in one office with Tim Burton.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
So we have you to blame for Tim Burton. Is
that what your.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
He got? He got frustrated in terms of the studio
wanting to blend Disney, the Disney style with your style
and and and I tried it because they asked me to,
and it wasn't really working. It was you you sing too,
so disneyfire Tim Burton drawing and you lose the Tim Burton,
you know. And yeah, and I remember Tim getting increasingly frustrated.

(29:58):
And then one of the last assignments for the film
that we were asked to do, where these for those
few of you who have seen the film, these flying
monster birds then kidnapped the pig dragon type birds, you
know that type. And so I'd done some and Tim
had the idea of a flying hand. So it was

(30:18):
it was a hand with an eye here and an
eye there and would kind of fly and then the
hand would grab two hands to birds and it had
bad wings, I think, but it was a hand human hand.

Speaker 5 (30:28):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
And the management said, well, that's interesting.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
But there's a nightmare for you.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah, but then he said that's a bit too abstract.
That's more like the movie Yellow Submarine, you know, where
crazy things happened, and that's a little too crazy for us.
And then Jim said, well, then let me just leave,
and then maybe he left and became Tim Burton and
I and I stuck around and yeah, oh, Tim was

(30:55):
I guess you can call it without He was a
little odd. He was also fun, you know, but he
he lived in his own world, you could tell, yeah,
And he liked practical jokes. And I remember one time
he came from the dentist and he had one or
two wisdom teeth pulled and he was still bleeding and
he wasn't even trying to stop that. He walked through

(31:18):
the hallway and blood was coming out, and people were
like him, what's the matter with you? And said, what
what you know?

Speaker 5 (31:26):
People?

Speaker 3 (31:27):
Oh man, Wow, with the real stuff.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, with the real stuff this time, my god. But
I adored his style, but I couldn't. I couldn't Disney
find I just couldn't do it. Yeah, I couldn't be tough.

Speaker 4 (31:40):
It's got to be tough if it's anything like what
we what we all know, you know, and see then
he was style.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
And stopped motioning. But he was able to do his
style all the way and maybe for Christmas exactly some
of the others. So I think Disney wasn't ready for him.
And now sometimes I wonder, all those years later, if
I could take a crack at it now, and now
that I really know more about his style and the
Disney style. But yeah, you kind of wonder maybe I
could do it now, why don't you try?

Speaker 5 (32:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (32:08):
I should, I should.

Speaker 5 (32:09):
I mean, there's enough of his artwork out there.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Is there is. And I had a little I had
a little reunion with him after the winning the poor
feature was was done because Disney sent me and Mark
heent to London and to talk about the movie and
in the media. And I remember the producer of Tim's film,
franken Weenie, stop motion film about a dog, a dead dog. Yes,

(32:36):
it was done in London, and Don Haunt said, if
you have time on that Sunday, they have a press tour,
just hop on over to the studio and see what
they're doing. I've never been on a stop motion set,
which is fascinating. And so I went over and somebody
told him who was there at the time, that I
would be amongst the press people. And when then once

(32:58):
once the tour was done, he came, he came to
me and he gave me a big hug, and we
hadn't seen each other in decades, and he said, he said,
you know, I just had a dream about the two
of us still being in that office on the third
floor of the mission building, you know, trying to do
black cordon drawings, and all that came out of me
was like, I hope it wasn't a nightmare, and he said, no, no,

(33:21):
no it wasn't, but I think it was. But it
was processing the frustration.

Speaker 5 (33:26):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, Jesus's funny. That's well, that's back. And Jeffrey would
have been your producer.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Jeffrey Katzenberg. Yeah, he was doing after or doing the
winning of the Pool movie days. He was already gone.
Remember Jeffrey left after Lion.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
King, That's what it was, Okay, left right.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
After Lion King and dream Works, and then dream Works happened,
and then he tried to lure Disney animators to join him,
and some did go, and I was also asked, and
I decided not to. But then that was a lucky
situation because all of a sudden we went demand and
we were compensated a lot better, all of a sudden,

(34:07):
a lot better. Not a bad situation. Yeah, that helps.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, it's good to be the king.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
It's good to be wanted.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
It's good to be wanted.

Speaker 4 (34:16):
Kind of jumping topics here, but I'm curious to ask you,
you know, obviously a lot of the projects that you
worked on were done traditionally, you know, and you know,
since we've seen Disney kind of move to like more
three D animation, did you learn how to animate digitally
as well?

Speaker 2 (34:32):
For a day or day and a half.

Speaker 5 (34:33):
For a day and a half.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
At the time, I enjoyed it, huh that much? Yeah? Yeah, Well,
Disney said, you don't know what it's like until you try,
and they had a point. So I had a tutor, Disney, tutor.

Speaker 5 (34:45):
Were you against it?

Speaker 2 (34:46):
I I was not in love with it. I saw
the appeal, and I liked toy Story. Of course I
love Toy Story, but whether it was for me, I
wasn't quite sure. But Disney said, try it. Have to
find out for yourself. So I had this tutor from
Disney come to my home and be all comfortable. And
at the time, I remember the the program was called Maya,

(35:10):
and so I learned Maya and how to move these
electronic puppets. You know, I think I was trying to
have a guy jump over something and and I did
that on a Saturday, and but it was so calculating.
You have to almost use math instead of instead of spontaneity,
because when you draw, you know, you just the accidents
that happened and your hand does something. Oh, I didn't

(35:33):
know sure that this could be good, you know, And
it's just the it's the opposite of being spontaneous and
spontaneity none. And and then I said, you know, this
is somebody else's party. I'm going to still have stuff
to do and drawing these things. And I talked to
Disney about it, and and we parted in very good ways.

(35:54):
They understood me, and I understood them.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yeah, I remember seeing and I guess maybe I bet
it was the making of the behind the scenes for
Princess and the Frog when you were you were talking
about you know, John and Ron and they toy story
had come out a couple of different things, computer generated
and uh and when they came to you, obviously, and

(36:20):
and so at that point, you know it's going to
be animated, animated, and you you really said something very
interesting about something about the coldness of the one aspect
and but this is going to be all hand drawn.
So I'm in, I'm in, I'm there, I'm get out
of my way.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
You know.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
It's like, well that was I got.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
To believe you were happy at the development and the
way things were going.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Yeah, that was pent in the Frog, wasn't it. When
John Lassiter came back.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Uh huh?

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Because even just before that, Disney had thought about not
doing handtorn films anymore. And then Lassiter was made the
boss of Disney Animation as well as Pixar, and last
I said, no, we all off to the animation. Let's
let let's do at least one more or it turned
out to be two more, and I did MAMAOUDI for
Princess and the Frog. And yeah, it was all still

(37:15):
pencil on paper on these old animation desks from the forties.
And then but of course then and this had happened
a few picture prior to Prince in the Frog. We
scanned the drawings in and then the people who add
color to the characters, they see these our drawings on
the screen and then they have a touch and bleed

(37:36):
they call it. You know, they would pick a grape
or like a wine red and they just touch it
and it bleeds to the edge of the.

Speaker 5 (37:45):
Edge of the So did you have to make sure
to do hard lines for that?

Speaker 2 (37:49):
Well, the assistants have to do that, Okay, I can
still draw in my own way loose, but we always
have what we call clean up artists. We take a
new sheet of paper and trace it very carefully. And
even though I checked those drawings, but they have to
close those lines, of course. And then then it was
a very a lot. It was a lot faster to
give those those characters color than the old way of

(38:10):
having celluloid sheets and inking them and painting them as
beautiful as they were to look at. But that process
had to happen, you know, because the look was still
the same. You still saw drawings in color on the screen,
you know. But that's where the computer really helped, you know.
But then of course it went a lot further. And
then the animation was done with the with the computer,

(38:33):
and I really would have done it, but it had
to have to do this, and it didn't, you know exactly.
I was more fascinated by it, like in a way
I would react like, look what they can do these days,
isn't that amazing shadows and all that details and all
those camera moves, you know, But but it didn't. It

(38:53):
didn't call me. The passion wasn't there, And so I said,
now I'm going to still be doing this. I still
have some work to do, and then I did my
own film.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
tuned In with Jim Cummings, you could support the show
on Patreon for bonus exclusive podcasts, as well as early
in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
join the tuned In family today at patreon dot com

(39:24):
slash Jim Cummings podcast.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Do it Now.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Yeah, so it was a few months after so we're
talking twenty eleven. I thought, what I really need is
my own project, and then just ask myself a series
of questions. What do you like to draw most? Well,
probably animals. Animals are really fun to draw. Then what
kind of animal would be fun that I haven't done.

(39:49):
I'd been used to drawing big cats, you know, studying
linking starting lines. I said, by the tiger is really
a cool animal because you got the stripes on the
tiger defining defining the form and that I mean, So,
how about a story of a tiger and a little
girl that could be contrasting and they become friends and
she raises him, and then when he gets big there's

(40:11):
trouble because there's some bad people around the two of
them who want to kill him and sell the body
on the black market or something like that. So she
finds out about it, and then she wants to save
him because she wants to save his life. But she
realizes she has to take him back in the forest.
But she found him as a cub, and hopefully he'll
be a while, he'll become a wild tiger. So that's

(40:32):
all I had. And that's not really a story with
a beginning and end. But then I have no problems
asking for help. And so it's particularly one friend of
mine who is one of those free reading artists. He's
not famous, he but he has written novels and poetry
and he writes music and just everything artistic. I said,
you can probably help me with this, And then he

(40:53):
came up with the idea that the whole thing starts
on a train ride, and that the whole film is
a flat back to this young woman's youth and she
was a child, and then it ends up again when
she is an adult, and and I thought, oh, that's
also and he invented the grandmother that raises the girl.
And because she has a father, but she never knew him.

(41:13):
And then grandmother becomes ill and sends her to her
father who she never knew, to eastern Russia, and and
so there was that dying dynamic, and I thought, well,
this is a novel. Yeah, really, this is a Yeah,
flexted out big time, so it wasn't just about the
tiger anymore. But then of course once she's out there

(41:33):
in Siberia and finds this cup, then then it's about
the two of them. But yeah, he kind of turned
it into a novel. And first I thought, well, it's
a little serious. But at Disney, usually what we would
do when we have a story real like this, we
have gag meetings and see how we can put in gags.
And I said, I the tone of it is just
doesn't call for a gag. There's some humor in it, definitely,

(41:56):
but not really gags, And so it has a call
a tone to it. And I thought, why not would
do one like that? And so I did, and I
was aiming for twelve minutes, but it turned into almost
half an hour. Oh and was the title. Sorry, it's
called mushka. Mushka, this is ushka, yeah, and which is
Russian for sweetheart something like that. And and the reason

(42:18):
why we went to Russia because my my friend, the
screenwriter started in India because when you talk about tigers,
India comes to mind, right, So he was developing this
Indian village with this girl and she goes into the
jungle and finds the tiger cub and he calls me
and he says, there, it just sounds too familiar this'

(42:40):
it's like Mowgli and there is already is a story
about that. And then it was my idea. And again
this is about ten years ago. I said, well, which
country has the biggest tigers in the world. It's Siberia.
Let's go there winter, you know, and rough weather. And
then it became about that, you know, not knowing stuff.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, well that's very different because you're usually in the
jungle sweating.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, but there is something fascinating about Siberi and it's
tigers in the snow. And that was a remember even
the title of a national geographic special, Tigers in the Snow,
which of course I studied, And so then we located
the whole story there.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (43:18):
Wait, so I just have one more question about this.
Online it says that this came out in twenty twenty three.
But you're talking this is over a decade, so was
it released.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
We did the festival circuit in twenty twenty three and
went all over the world and showed the film Festival,
won some nice awards. But now it's time for it
to be released. So we're looking toward the end of
the year before the holidays. So oh, perfect on a
streaming service and then my own website maybe, but it
just needs to be seen now, aiming before the holidays. Mushka, yeah, okay,

(43:51):
it's m ushka.

Speaker 5 (43:53):
Oh, that's exciting.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
I'm interested. They can go on YouTube. We released a
whole bunch of music videos.

Speaker 5 (43:59):
It was great.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
That's the one thing. Also, Richard Sherman wrote a song
for a film o his last movie song No because
I told him ten years ago. He asked me at
a lunch of what I was doing, and I said,
I think I'm going to do this my own film,
and here's the story about the tiger and the girl.
And when I was finished, Richard's fingers tapped at the

(44:21):
table and he said, maybe maybe somebody at this lunch
table with some musical background can write a song. And
I was just like you gotta be tell me if
it's not true. You know, Oh my god, that is
like the major theme, not just a song, but the
theme in the score. It's all based on Richard's theme.
Oh my gosh, that's magnificent.

Speaker 4 (44:43):
And you want to fill in the audience for anybody
who doesn't know who the Sherman Brothers are.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Well, the Sherman Brothers wrote your favorite song probably you
know you thought it was the Beatles, Well it you know,
they wrote the Beatles' favorite songs too, No, but I
mean everything from Mary Poppins, everything from uh, you know,
I almost said Princess and the Frog, but it's.

Speaker 5 (45:09):
A small.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
I was going to say, there's a there's a lot
of ear you know what they wrote. They wrote earworms.
And I've told them that and uh and and I
told them. And then one of my I met I've
worked with them many many times over the years, and
I said, I I dadvertently, I didn't. I don't think
I've flat out and insulted them, but close. And I said,

(45:36):
by the way I should, because after I'd gotten to
know them, we worked on any number of projects. And
I said, by the way, I should let you guys
know that I found that. I know the cure for
it's a small world. And they looked at each other
and busted up laughing. He goes, and you know, you know, Dick,
he was sitting there.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
Goes, he found the cure for it's a small world.
What pray tell is the cure.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
And I said, well, you know how mom, and you're
stuck in you He goes, believe me.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
I know, I know, I know all about it. I
wrote it.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
I go, yes, you did, and I said, well, it's
the Beatles. The Beatles are the cure for the Showman brothers.
I said yes, And it's the Long and Winding Road,
because if you go the long and Winding road, if
you make it that far, it's it's not quite a hook,
but it's kind of a hook. And all of a sudden,

(46:31):
you know, it's a small world's gone forever. And see
in the Long and Winding Road, you're welcome.

Speaker 5 (46:37):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
I saved you from the Showman brother But that was
that was my story. But they knew what they were doing.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
That people telling them that they can't get that small
out of their head. And the people complain, but they
don't mind. The Shermans didn't they think it's funny. They
think it's thought it was great. It's also un honored.
Remember this, you know, and like, along with the rest
of that song said just amazing songwriters.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
Oh, absolutely, yeah, I was. I was very you know.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
One of my favorite things was was from the last
way of the Pooh I'm busy, busy, busy doing nothing
and nothing is good enough for me. And that that's
a play on words. That's beautiful, busy doing nothing and
nothing is good enough for me. Yeah, you know, you
gotta love those guys.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
I want to talk about one other scene that where
we overlap the winning of the poor feature and of
course you did not only Pooh but also amazing work
on Tigger. They gave me all this beautiful material to
work with. And then towards the end of the film,
remember they all end up in that hole and Tiger
is really happy to see uh, to see his friends,

(47:54):
and he gives e or this big hug and I
don't remember the exact line, but oh, I'm so happy
to see you, and he does this snort. Yeah, and
I more like that is interesting. That's the same thing.
I'm going to do something with it. Tiger has never
snorted previously. And I lift up his head and I
put her big nostro in there, just for that moment,

(48:16):
and the directors thought it was funny. And you gave
me that, so thank you.

Speaker 3 (48:19):
Oh my pleasure.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
You know, I'm I can't tell you how honored I am.
Right now, I'm getting goosebumps. Yeah, I give good snort.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Yeah. And somebody wrote online, I have to find this
source because you want to know about this. Somebody just
rediscovered recently a young person. I guess we need the
poor feature and she said, and Jim Comming, so did
both characters Pooh and Tigger did such a and she
described it really well, sensitive insight for character rich. He

(48:53):
knew those characters are soul full, that he should be
given an Academy Award for this. And I was thinking
about this. I'm more like, it's true. Yeah, you know,
Academy are you watching?

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Well, I'm right here if you need me. I mean,
it's just well, that's nice.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
You know, you give the acting performance with your voice.
I try to catch up with my drawings. But what
you brought to those two characters, it's nothing else but astounding.
Oh you go years.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
Later, thanks shocks incredible, you have ten minutes to stop that.
Oh well, thank you coming from you. That's that's quite
quite nice. I appreciate it. And you know, I'm looking
at my notes and I realized, runaway brain you were
that was an interesting departure from Mickey Mouse and the looks,

(49:47):
the faces that, I mean, just the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
It was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
I I like it, and it's it's just a shame
that the company sort of like puts it on hold.
At least. Yeah, they're just a little bit didn't know
really what to do with it of the image, you know,
I mean he turned into characters other characters before, but
then as long as he turns into the old Mickey
at the end, I think it's okay. But sure, but

(50:11):
he we we really made a monster out of him.
And but that was the fun part because you take
the most the cutest, most famous animated character and tournament
into a monster and how much more fun can you have?
And so yeah, it's a sat tire on the Frankenstein story.
And and I we would We did the animation in France,

(50:33):
in Paris because they that was the group that had
done the Goofy Movieka and that was done for Disney Television.
Even though on a really high.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Level and the Disney Tune Division it.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
Was, and then Disney Future Animation saw it and they said, no,
these guys are pretty good. They should work for us
and help us out because we're always behind on usually
behind on our features. So then that crew ended up
ended up doing sequences for a Hunchback of Notre Dame
for Tarzan Hercules for.

Speaker 5 (51:04):
A few years.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
But their first project for Disney Future Animation was Runnaway Brain.
So I had the absolute pleasure of going over there
for half a year and working in Paris on a
Disney film, you know, on a short film. But it's
a good short.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Yeah, but you didn't have any time to do any
sight seeing, did you.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
You know that was really hard because there you have
Paris and all the cultural offerings and you have to
go to work into your nine to five, you know,
a boy, But no, it was it was really fun.
There's one funny dialogue store. It has to do with dialogue.
If I can't bring this up, I think so. A
lot of the people the animators didn't speak English very well,

(51:45):
some not at all, and we were taught a little
bit of French. I had some school French so I
could get by and we met in the middle. So
there's this girl who was an animator and she did
a scene with Mini Mouse at the beginning of the short,
and she was upset because apparently Mickey had forgotten about
the anniversary, of course, and because he was playing video
games at the beginning of Oh No and didn't even

(52:07):
think about the anniversary. And Mini comes in the joy says, Mickey,
you forgot, oh anniversary acrosses her arms. So this girl
had animated that, and the animation was fine, But I
looked at the dialogue and she said she I said,
you never opened really her mouth very big, you know, Mickey,
you forgot. You just have a forgot, you know, you

(52:29):
keep it all in here. I said, you need to
put the vowels and the strong vowels and make them
very big. And and she says, well, I have I
have a mirror in my office. I look into that's
what you know. And I'm like, well, you have to
have an American say that for you to open them

(52:50):
ucause friendship don't do that.

Speaker 5 (52:52):
That's funny, Okay.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
At least she wasn't using sign language. That would have
been that would have been a little too interesting. Oh god,
well there's a.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
This is an interesting issue that came up. Yeah, using
her mouth in the mirror and it didn't apply.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Yeah, no, kidding, Shadow puppets. It's not to say no.
What's keeping you the busiest these days?

Speaker 2 (53:21):
Gosh, some really really unusual, exciting projects. I still want
to do another short film and more which is a
little bit on the back burner now because I ended
up co producing right now a documentary film on Woolley
Ryderman with his son Bruce Ryderman, who is the original

(53:41):
voice of Mowgli and Christopher Robin. His father directed The
Jungle Book and Winning the Poor Movies as well as
starting Stone. So yeah, so he wants to leave something behind.
He's a year or two older than me, and I
kind of nudged him like a couple of years ago,
I said, your father had such an interesting life. He

(54:02):
was one of the nine Old Men. Then he became
a director. Then Walt passes in the middle of Jungle Book,
and your dad kind of took over and was really
heading up the animated program from then on until even
Folks in the Hound, you know, all without Wald. So
so that that that's a story, you know, and why
was he picked to do that and not others? And

(54:24):
then even during World War Two he was a pilot
to transporting goods from China over the Himalayas to India.
I mean, just a really big adventure. And and he's
pretty famous for having done a lot of action scenes.
He did Monster the Whale. He he did the also
in Snow White, the Mirror, the Guy in the Mirrors that. Yeah,

(54:52):
and he did what else did you do? Later on
Lady in the Tramp to fight with the dogs, So
he was into action and then he started directing. He
did the Dragon fight with the Prince and oh, Sleeping
Beauty and the Dragon and Sleeping Beauty and then directed
from then on. So yeah, we're right in the middle
of it. We interviewed everybody who is still around or

(55:15):
who overlapped with Woolly Wyderman's life because he died in
eighty five, I think, and I was just had zoom
meetings with him. Now I'm doing a little piece of
new animation for the film, like an animateds tribute, and
I think Glen Keen is going to do one and
is like John Palmer, So it's a tribute, but also
it talks about his whole life and it's an adventurous

(55:36):
life that he that he led. So that's one of
the projects I want to do. I just got the
verbal approval from Disney to do a project which I've
started thinking about in the late eighties. Even they have
to do a book on Milk Call again one of
the Nine Old Men, because he really really his style,

(55:57):
his drawing skills were really finding the Disney style for decades.
He designed the final design for almost all characters from
pinoc Pinocchio on because nobody dorew as well as he did.
And so that's deserving of a nice coffee tail work.
And I also know him a little bit in the
eighties and so I can I'm in the in the

(56:19):
middle of that, and.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
Yeah, just projects like that. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah,
it's for that one. Do I get a copy signed?

Speaker 2 (56:28):
You? Got it?

Speaker 5 (56:29):
Got it?

Speaker 2 (56:29):
You got a lot of witnesses here. And I sat
down with Disney and I said, look, I I know
how Disney books are. They're often small and you want
them to fit neatly in the bookshelf. But this Milk
car he was like the Michael Angelo of Disney. It's
got to be it's got to be a size oversized.
I can't do it small. And and look, they looked
at me. And then I did bring some sample pages

(56:52):
that I had done it, and then that got the idea.
I said, no, we should do this.

Speaker 5 (56:56):
One deserves size.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Yeah, that there's so much explosive talent and that you
it needs a scales. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Yeah, wow, well nobody does it. I mean you're you're
like the bridge between the Old School, the Nine Old Men,
and tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
Yeah. That's why I also started my blog way back
because I thought I had I'd known these guys and
I could tell the stories that they told me two
people and they never heard, you know, And so that
was part of my blog.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
Continue you still post like weekly yog Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
It's just the it almost isn't working, even though I
might be animating stepping over to my computer and scanning something.
It just gives me a break. But it's still in
the same world, you know. And I just don't want
people to forget what these guys did, you know, And
it's just it's too important and so yeah, yeah, you're

(57:51):
right about that.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
tuned in with Jim Cummings. You could support the show
on Patreon for bonus ex lusive podcasts as well as
early in ad free access to the show itself, prize drawings,
join the tuned in family today at Patreon dot com

(58:13):
slash Jim Cummings Podcast.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
Do It Now.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
What would you say to anybody that's young, a young
child these days, that wants to be an animator, what
would be your advice to them?

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Well, if you know what kind of animation you're gravitating
to it, then you can be a bit more specific.
If you like computer animation, there are certain skills you know.
You don't have to be a great draftsman. If you
know a little bit of drawing and sketching, it helps
to visualize on paper or on your tablet what you're
going to do. So I even CG for upcoming CG animators.

(58:49):
I said, learn how to draw it. It really helps.
And if you want to do to the animation and
you wait for that medium to come back, which I
think it will because people people really want it success
and it's just a question of time, then do that.
And I would tell them the same thing that Disney
told me to go to the zoo and study anatomy,
study how people move and all of that, and yeah,

(59:12):
I think drawing it's because you're a visualizer. And also
study acting. You know, I've never taken an acting class,
but you watch people behave in a certain situations, and
sometimes I watch a whole movie just observing the acting
of a certain character, because that's basically what you are.
You know. The drawing is almost secondary. You know, you
think about the emotion and what's going on your character's

(59:36):
head's that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
So study approach it. What are they thinking? What are
they feeling?

Speaker 2 (59:41):
And my big break came because Disney told me, you
have to learn how to draw well and then we
teach you the rest. So I did, and then my
first animation was stiff because I didn't have the experience yet.
And then one of the older animators, Olie Johnston, came
and gave a lecture which was very cool, and one
thing he said, you young whipper snappers, you know, young guys,

(01:00:03):
you shouldn't animate drawings, you should animate feelings. And you
think about that for a while, you think, well, what
is he talking about? Of course, your animate drawings, but
he was talking about his philosophy that the feeling and knowing,
getting into the feeling of the character is actually more
important than nice drawings, because once you feel what the

(01:00:24):
character is feeling, that will tell you how to do it.
And that was to me, was like, whoa, this is
big stuff. It's one sentence, but it's big stuff. And
I knew then that I shouldn't really focus so much
on drawing anymore. I drew well enough, but you crawl
into the character. And I don't think I ever crawled

(01:00:48):
deeper than into a character than with Lilo. And Lilo
and Stitch. She was such a complex character and you
couldn't express it in broad ways.

Speaker 5 (01:00:58):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Tigger is one thing, you know, expresses himself that he
would be the opposite physically. But with Lilo, she is
like so withheld and you know she does little subtle
things and yes.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
But cute as can be.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Yeah, really, And I remember noticing that, Oh, you're really
in there in her head right now, very very deep,
you know, because there's so many things that she doesn't
have parents anymore. She doesn't get along with her older sister.
They have arguments, and she has trouble at school and
processing all those things, but still having hope. She has

(01:01:35):
his new friends Stitch, you know, which gives her reason
to be happy.

Speaker 5 (01:01:39):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
There's a lot of things going on, and that it
was a very unique character, very unique and different and villains.
But I'm also very grateful that I had a chance to,
you know, switch gears because after a scar, after Lyon,
King Ron and John were starting Hercules, and they said, well,
do you want to do Haides for us? And I said,

(01:02:02):
if I have a choice, I said, if I have
a choice, I probably shouldn't do it. Really should be
somebody else's turn, because I might end up repeating myself
in terms of a concept of a villain. And I
am so happy and I really mean it that Nick
Ranieri ended up doing Hades because his take is so
different than what I would have done, and fresh, you know,

(01:02:23):
and then I ended up doing it was great. It
was wild and and and punchy, you know, and.

Speaker 4 (01:02:31):
And James Wood James.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
So Nick did that, and then I asked to do
the hero Hercules because just to try something different, different
character concept, and and that's that. That was the great thing.
You could really not not pick and choose, but you
can if they know that you really have a passion
for a particular character. Chances are you going to get
that character because they know you're going to do a

(01:02:56):
good job.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Yeah, because yeah, of course. Yeah, you can just stay
aim and fire. That's wonderful.

Speaker 5 (01:03:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
So I was weak and uh, did you not do
Nessus the center where you know that was con Duncan
did that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
I did Hercules, messing with Nessus and him, like like
facing him and arguing with him. And so I did
some of those scenes like Ken Duncan DIDs.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Okay because I was nesss.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Right right, Yeah, So I reacted to some of the
I remember one scene that I snuck in where he's
addressing him at the beginning and he's standing in the
water and says, hey, god, how does the lingo? Pardon
you my good? And he looks underneath to see what
he is is he made of Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,

(01:03:44):
And I added that, oh yeah, to take that out.
It's kind of subtle too, you know, pardon me my good, sir,
you know, yeah, yeah, you put those things in.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Oh god, yeah, see if anybody catches him.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Yeah. One one other time I did that on Jafar,
and I thought, are they're going to take that out.
At the end of the movie, he was dealing with
Princess Jasmine and Aladdin and the Genie were watching hiding
and he has his final wish. She says, Genie, I
want my final wish. I want Princess Jasmine to fall
desperately in love with me. And I put the tongue

(01:04:23):
out love. And that's a little naughty, yeah, but I
did it desperately in love with me, And I said,
I'm just just waiting for the phone call, you know,
shut the tongue back inside, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Didn't get it, didn't get it, you know, I have.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
I had a couple of those. It was when we
did timooned Pumba and a Cereal on Saturday Morning, This
is the Guy, like twenty years ago, and I played
I think there were coyotes that were coming up and
they were supposed to be hillbillies or anyway, and the
and the line was it's a well don't look at me,

(01:04:59):
it's not my and I think it's yours. So instead
I said, well, don't look at me, it's not mine.
I think it's urine and and and they they kind
of went, what do you say? Did he say replying
that back, you know, and I think it's urine and
it sounded kind of hillbilly, it sounds like. But anyway,

(01:05:19):
I had to go in and do it, redo it.
But there is one thing and it's in the movie
Christopher Robin and I've just said this before, and it's
when h little Maddie, she's carrying the dolls around Pooh
and Tigger and and the policeman uh is called. There's
a guy who sees them talking, sees the animals speaking

(01:05:42):
the stuff. He's talking with her and he's going, wait
a minute, oh, something's up, you know, he's suspicious, and
he calls the police over and he says them little girls.
That little girl she was talking and this bloody target
thing he it was talking, and then and then the
bear he was talking, and he.

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
Goes, oh, so you're having a little spot. Are you
drinking your lunch? Are you you know? This and that?
And he said, we don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
I go on, little gayl you can go on right away.
Thank you, officer. And I go, thank you, orifice. And
instead of saying officer, Pooh said thank you, orifice. And
it's in the movie. They left it so now you
guys are gonna have to go out there exactly, ya,
And I just made ten cents on residuals maybe who knows.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
So Jim, yeah, thank you. Rifice do you get to
at lip a little bit like that?

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
Every time?

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
Every time?

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
Perfect, every time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
I always I'm notorious ad Liver, dark Wing, Doug dark Wing. Well,
I don't know about that, but dark Wing Duck has
this thing. I am the tear of the Flaps in
the Night. I'm the winged skirts of picture in the Nightmares.
I am dark Wing Duck. Well, the first line the
third line are always the same, and we're about seven
shows in. I've told this before. I'll probably tell them
a million more times. It said, I am the tear

(01:06:58):
of the Flaps in the Night. It does matter what
I write here. You know Jim's going to say something
else anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
I am dark going down. So they were right.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
So you know, we throw in our little yeah, little
bit makes someone and we want natural you know that
gives us stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:07:17):
Yeah yeah, speaking speaking of natural, I have to ask
you about this, just because you're such a profound artist
and so true to the artistry of using your hands.

Speaker 5 (01:07:28):
How do you feel about this? Ai? Art.

Speaker 4 (01:07:31):
How do you feel about these AI animations that come
from a prompt, not even digitally animated.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Yeah, I am so cautious when when it generates the
Ghibli style, for example, I think it's cheating. It's actually stealing,
you know. But AI is a tool to help you
get started. I've dabbled a little bit in it. I
have jat gipt on my phone actually, and if I

(01:08:02):
do a sketch, and I just played with this there
the other day and I said, take a photo of it.
Put it in. I said, what would the sketch of
a person or an animal look like as an oil
painting or as a as a maybe unfinished watercolor. As
I'm developing maybe a project. It will give me all
these options. And it actually can be helpful to stimulate

(01:08:24):
your because I'm not going to make an oil painting
of my character. I don't painting oil, you know. But
it gives me another point of view, another visual, so
to get you going and stimulated. I think it could
be a very good thing. And people friends of mine
have used it for text you know, they have to
write a form letter to an insurance company, but every

(01:08:45):
word is really important. So it helps you with that,
but keeping your own sensibility or the way you talk.
And so I think for stuff like that it can
be good. But the whole stealing thing is is unfortunate.
You know that it's just grabs something that it seems
and repackages it. I think that's that's kind of awkward.

Speaker 4 (01:09:02):
Yeah, I totally agree with you, though I think it
could be a great tool. I don't think it's the solution.
I think it's a tool to help, you know, like
how a paint brush helps you paint. You know, it's
a lot better than a finger or a stick. You know,
it's that in between.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
It's not the Yeah, you see your character maybe depicted
differently that you maybe hadn't thought of, and then you
pick it up from from that and take it someplace else,
and it just gives you gives you options instantly, and
that's kind of a cool thing.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
So it's a tool.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
It's a tool.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
It's just it's just a tool in the end.

Speaker 5 (01:09:34):
And hopefully it stays that way.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
Yeah, Yeah, we'll see what happens. It's a little scary,
you know. So listen to some of the people who
work in AI, and some of them say the world
has no idea what's coming. It scares me a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
we'll see, we'll see what.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
Happens, yeah, Norkwood.

Speaker 2 (01:09:52):
Yeah, well they don't as we stay human and grounded,
you know, and humanity is something you want to We
don't want to have a fabric humanity.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
Yes, right, yeah, the terminatory past.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
Yeah yeah, hopefully that'll be fiction for a long.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
Time, for a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
Yeah, science fiction always becomes science fact.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
Though, I know, you know, I know, I know. I
remember seeing that Kid Winslet movie about the virus and
that was science fiction way back fifteen years ago. And yeah,
thing happened, Yeah, it has a way.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
Yeah, well on that happy note, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:32):
Leg it, subscribe and all that, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
Yeah, So what will I be seeing you at any
conventions upcoming or any lectures or are you on?

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
Are you out there not?

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
Because I know not specifically. I did get an Instagram
note from somebody who said, oh, would you ever consider
coming to this town for we have our own cons
right now. So I'm considering that and yeah that's good,
love to do that. And there's some signings a good time.
Yeah yeah, yeah, well that sounds good, But I think
my main focus right now among those projects that I

(01:11:07):
is to have my film out there so people can
see it. And because I get those questions absolutely on
those little clips that we did post where can I
see it? Where can I see it?

Speaker 4 (01:11:16):
And so now I'm excited that Mushka is coming out
so soon. I didn't expect that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
Well it's been it's been a while that we've sort
of been no, i know, been available to us. Yeah,
it's time. It's time. I just want people to see
it and like it, not like it whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:11:29):
Yeah, but good.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
You just make these things for an audience, yeah right, Yeah,
and we'll put.

Speaker 4 (01:11:35):
The links to the clips that are on YouTube in
the description of this video. Yeah, so people can just
easily click over and watch those. Yeah, of course, of course.
And thank you so much for being here. It's a
really good, an absolute pleasure. We could go on, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:11:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:11:49):
Well, feel free to come back anytime, all right, Yeah,
we'll be here.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
Yeah. I would like to get your reaction once the
film is out, like past the holidays early next year,
if you've seen it, what do you think of it?
Maybe that way guys? Yeah, and alization, then you will
have heard the Sherman song and you approach graphically I
have in the film because the first Disney films I
saw were those Xerox films where the lines were black
and lively under one domnation. So my film is in

(01:12:15):
that style. Oh wow, that's interesting to get your take
on it. Yeah, that's good stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:12:22):
Let's do it. Yeah, fantastic.

Speaker 4 (01:12:24):
Thanks again, very much much, and thank you guys all
so much for watching another episode of Tuned In with
Jim Cummings. I'm producer Chris Jim Cummings, the legend himself
in the other Legend Andreas Desha, thank you so much
for being here. If you guys like that content, be
sure to like and subscribe. It helps us, it helps
you find more content like this. Did you know that

(01:12:45):
on YouTube you can actually watch a video and it's
never ever recommended to you. Again, I know, the algorithm's crazy,
so make sure that doesn't happen. If you like this content,
and if you like it so much you want to
see more good news, you can go subscribe on page.
That's right, Jim Cummings tuned In. On Patreon, you can
find bonus content, additional content. A little behind the scenes,

(01:13:09):
we have the cameras rolling for a little longer than
on YouTube, so you can get a little sense of,
you know, the friendliness and the camaraderie between.

Speaker 5 (01:13:16):
The guests, the stuff. You know, you get a little
peek behind the curtains, so to speak.

Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
There you go.

Speaker 4 (01:13:20):
If you want some merchandise, you've got to shopify Jim
Commings closet. And I think that just about does it
for all of that good stuff. Convention dates and the
description of course, and until next time, I'm producer Chris
once again, Jim Cummings, Andreas Desha, Thank you so much,
see you in the next one.

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):
But Adi, that's all folks, And you just make it
so comfortable. Oh we'll good.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
You make it so easy, you know. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
Oh I'm so glad you made it. Thank you.

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